This being Ice Cream Month and all, we wanted to focus on the ingredients and producers that let us make this sweet creamy treat. So today we have another sort of treat for you: a tour of a dairy farm!

This tour comes to you from Sarah, who usually writes for AT:Chicago. This summer she visited a dairy farm and took tons of great photos. Make sure to watch the slideshow. (Cute kids, cute calves, and baby bottles!)

From Sarah:

This summer I was privileged enough to join a group of Kindergarden-Fifth Graders on their adventure to a local dairy farm. Shatto Milk is a pride and joy of Kansas City. They are a small, family owned and operated farm, located just north of the metropolitan area. The farm has been in their family for over 100 years; the last 60 of those it has operated as a dairy farm and for the last 5 have been processing their milk in house, to insure the best product you can buy reaches stores.

This journey was a grand adventure that not only taught children where food truly comes from, but also was a great lesson for the adults in accompaniment about supporting local growers/farmers in order to bring a healthier product back into our community.

The milk sold by Shatto Milk Company can go from cow to the store in as little as 12 hours. They sell everything from your standard 1%, 2% and whole milks, to the ever tasty Rootbeer Milk, Banana Milk, Chocolate Milk, Strawberry Milk and Orange Milk.

Cream, butter and half and half can also be picked up and are well worth the glass bottle deposit to bring such tasty treats home (if they make it that far!). Although, we often have a hard time returning the bottles since the typography on their bottles is so fantastic. They sport such words as, Family, Local, Fresh, Yummy and Cheers. There just isn't a comparison to milk that is transported by bottle. It stays colder, fresher, is more earth friendly and just plain old tastes better.

The small handful of dedicated workers at the Shatto Farm have made it their top priority to limit the number of times the milk is handled and to process the milk in a manner that maintains its superior taste. Shatto milk comes from cows that haven't been treated with rbST (recombinant bovine somatotropin) or recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH). Furthermore, it only comes from cows that are born and raised on their family owned farm, which are considered part of the Shatto family.

Since they believe wholeheartedly in providing the best product they can, they are also farmers and provide most of the forage (silage or food) for the cows from their own property. The cows are milked daily and receive personal attention to make sure that their health is maintained. Personal records are kept on each cow and calf to assure growth and development proceeds as normal. A local veterinarian is used whenever preventative health measures are required.

They are able to grazes in acres upon acres of pasture when it isn't milking time and have covered shelter to rest or sleep.

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Faith is the executive editor of The Kitchn and the author of three cookbooks. They include The Kitchn Cookbook, coauthored with Sara Kate Gillingham, as well as Bakeless Sweets. She lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband Mike.